"The Little Disturbances of Man"

[fiefoe]

The opening stories in Grace Paley's short story collection are warmly comic, but the later ones gradually become tragicomic, and the ending pieces are perhaps even stranger.

'Goodbye and Good Luck'

• She'd know my heart is a regular college of feelings and there's such information between my corset and me that her whole married life is a kindergarten.
• a place so full of Hungarians, it was deafening.
• every single night the hundreds of pale faces waiting for his feelings to make them laugh or bend down their heads in sorrow.
• In memory of him and out of respect for mankind, I decided to live for love.
• In the morning I had to do piecework... So I made flowers... This was my independence, Lillie dear, blooming, but it didn't have no roots and its face was paper.
• In those noisy years I had friends among interesting people who admired me for reasons of youth and that I was a first-class listener.
• After (the actresses) was the.. whole garment center; their past is a pincushion, future the eye of a needle.
• A serious fellow, his idealism was his hat and coat. "Rosie, I offer you a big new free happy unusual life."
• Whatever you do, life don't stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.
• In order to make a job on the stage, he's got to practice. I understand it now, to him life is like a rehearsal.
• while my heart was circulating with his smiles
• "Don't you think, a couple of old pals like us could have a few good times among the material things of this world?"

'A Woman, Young and Old'

• That's what the acoustics of this barn have to take.
• "I have been lonely for France for five years. Now for the rest of my life I must be lonely for you."
• "I'm artistic and I sometimes hold two views at once."
• She was just beady to think of my stubborn decision and how my life contained the roots of excitement.
• "I'm beginning to feel like a procurer," said Lizzy.

'The Pale Pink Roast'

• He turned the palms of his hands up as though to guess at rain. Anna knew him, theme and choreography. The sunshiny spring afternoon seeped through his fingers. He looked up at the witnessing heavens to keep what he could.
• He tipped her chin to look and measure opportunity. She could not open her eyes... Honorably he searched, but on her face he met no quarrel.
• Afterward, having established tenancy, he rewarded her with kisses. But he dressed quickly because he was obligated by the stories of his life to remind her of transience.
• Consuming the black fact, gritting his teeth to retain it...
• In the street among peaceable strangers he did a handstand. Then easy and impervious, in full control, he cartwheeled eastward into the source of night.

'The Loudest Voice'
__ Under the narrow sky of God's great wisdom she wore a strawberry-blond wig.
__ What belongs to history, belongs to all men... So maybe someday she won't live between the kitchen and the shop.